Trans and Bisexual Callers
Though the LSWB handbook specified that volunteers “must not promote or exhibit personal biases and prejudices” in their interactions with callers, biases and prejudices were nonetheless on display in the pages of the Switchboard’s call logs, especially when it came to the issues of bisexuality and trans identity. Because LSWB’s mission was to serve as a resource for women, it had a policy of not talking to men. This was an easy enough policy to enforce when men called to insult or berate the staff—a commonplace occurrence—and also when gay men called for advice and were subsequently referred to the Gay Switchboard. But what about trans-feminized callers? What about transsexual men? What about people whose gender identity was unclear?
Bisexual women seemed to fit comfortably in the category “woman” in the eyes of LSWB staffers, but their place in the lesbian community was less certain, especially in the 1970s. Nonetheless, for bisexual women wanting to meet women, it was common for staffers to suggest lesbian community groups and events. One such call was recorded on December 27, 1972, when a staffer wrote down: “♀ called wants to meet other women—she said she’s bi—& finds it really hard meeting women in bars—rapped about other ways of meeting women—like joining CR groups-firehouse and being part of the lesbian community.”[1] The staffer’s note that the caller “said she’s bi” can be interpreted either as a subtle indication of incredulity (instead of writing, for example, “bisexual woman called”) or as a helpful clarification that the caller, though asking about places to meet women, did not identify as “lesbian.” Either way, staffers’ biases toward bisexual women are ultimately difficult to parse from the limited notes available in the call logs. Overall, staffers were willing to talk with and advise bisexual women in most cases, whether or not these women explicitly identified as lesbian.
But of course, the complications of gender did not always align well with the sexed binary implicit in LSWB’s woman-only answering policy. The term lesbian, though capacious enough to include women with varying degrees of sexual attraction to women, seemed to reach a conceptual limit when it came to callers who identified as transsexuals or transvestites or whose stated gender did not match staffers’ perceptions of their voices and mannerisms. The notes in the LSWB call logs that described trans-feminized, transsexual, and transvestite callers—of which there were many—ranged from neutral and descriptive to intensely derogatory.
As Jules Gill-Peterson argues, it is a common misconception that “American feminists, even lesbian feminists, were solidly anti-trans in the 1970s.”[2] Indeed, there was no uniform policy of trans-inclusion or trans-exclusion at the Switchboard until the 1980s. Over the years, some staffers shared valuable resources with callers about transsexual medical care and inclusive counseling centers, while others referred these callers to the Gay Switchboard. Still others openly insulted them or told them to stop calling, especially if the callers were assumed to be men “posing” as women (a common transphobic trope among trans-exclusionary feminists). Though transphobia is apparent in the call logs of LSWB, especially those from the 1970s, it is also true that there were significant political and personal differences among the women of the Switchboard and that the values of the collective changed over time when it came to the policy of serving only non-trans women.
As LSWB staffers categorized callers by gender and sexual orientation in their call logs, they created a collective vocabulary for sexual and gendered identity that reinscribed some binaries while troubling others—and this collective vocabulary changed over time. Bisexual callers, for example, might be referred to as “bisexual ♀” in the call logs, whereas lesbian women were often represented by the “♀♀” symbol. Trans-feminized, transsexual, and transvestite callers were often represented with the symbol of their presumed gender, sometimes followed by a question mark (often in direct contrast to their stated gender, especially for self-identified transsexual women: for example, “♂ transvestite”).[3] On at least a few occasions, these callers were identified by staffers in the call logs using a symbol that combined the male and female sex symbols into a third symbol, flagging their perceived difference from other callers. These shorthand identity categories sometimes matched callers’ stated identities, and at other times elided callers’ complex identities or erased them entirely.
Policies about how to deal with transsexual and transvestite callers at LSWB were inconsistent at best, and enforcement of these policies seemed to be lax, especially in the Switchboard’s first decade. Until at least 1979, it was the policy of the LSWB to refer male callers to the Gay Switchboard. As noted in meeting minutes from December of that year: “Janet will send letter to gay SWB explaining our policy of not excepting [sic] calls from men-including transsexuals and ask them not to refer these♂ to the LSWB.” Staffers often cited this policy as a reason to end phone calls with self-identified transsexual women and transvestites, whom most Switchboard volunteers categorized in their notes not as women, but as men.[4]
As LSWB navigated the changing terrain of lesbian feminism and, later, LGBTQ organizing, thorny questions about gender bled into every aspect of the Switchboard’s work. There were, for example, notable differences between staffers’ treatment of transfeminine and transmasculine callers, raising the question of whether transsexual men could be considered feminists and whether transsexual women and transvestites could be considered lesbians. Staffers often presumed that transsexual women and transvestites were better served by the expertise of the Gay Switchboard, as they were prone to assume these women had once been or still were gay men, especially before “transsexualism” officially became a diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 1980.[5] Transsexual men (who called the Switchboard much less frequently) posed a different kind of definitional problem for staffers. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, these men had fewer outlets for self-expression and fewer dedicated social and political spaces for community-building as compared to transfeminine people, leading to a general sense of transmasculine illegibility at LSWB and elsewhere.[6]
Revealingly, many of the “problem” calls that staffers discussed during their monthly general meetings were from transsexual or transvestite callers. Staffers complained that they had trouble distinguishing these callers from “crank” calls. The staffers’ own confusion about which calls to take seriously makes it even more challenging for historians to analyze and interpret the call logs today. Among those callers who self-identified as transsexuals or transvestites, it is probably true that some of the mental health crises they brought to the Switchboard were too complicated for staffers to deal with, as was the case with many non-trans callers as well. For example, in October 1986, a staffer brought up the problem of a “repeat caller” during a general meeting. The meeting minutes noted that the caller was “transsexual” and indicated: “We’re not helping him [sic]. We agreed to tell him, ‘We’ve given all the help we’re able to.’ We agreed to tell him not to call again.”[7] There were many other instances like this one, when a caller seemed to need more help than staffers could give, regardless of their gender.
In other cases, ignorance and bigotry seemed to drive staffers’ responses to trans callers. This was the case, for example, with one of the few calls the Switchboard received from a trans man, when a staffer noted: “♀ transsexual – wants operation so she [sic] can talk like a man but not grow a prick, and not loose [sic] her tits – I wished her luck – gave her the name of a doctor on file – Jesus Crist [sic] it was hard not to laugh!” This kind of note is a stark reminder that while some staffers were interested in providing help and information to trans callers, others dismissed these callers offhand, either explicitly discounting them with harsh advice or rejection or implicitly discounting them by mocking them in the call logs.
This was especially true for trans-feminized callers, who were sometimes explicitly told by staffers that they were not women. For example, in September 1977, a staffer wrote of one caller: “I just found out ‘she’s’ a transvestite. Explained that we took calls from ♀ only. At which point she (?) interjected that she (?) is (mentally). Explained that we took calls from people who were biologically ♀ this seemed to sink in.”[8] Here, we can see the language of trans-exclusionary radical feminism making its way into daily Switchboard interactions and guiding some staffers’ dismissive responses to trans callers, a problem that was especially acute in the 1970s.
Volunteers’ diverse approaches to trans callers are evident throughout the pages of the Switchboard’s records. The lack of consensus on who counted as an acceptable Switchboard caller can be glimpsed in the meeting minutes from October 1977. Under the heading “transexuals” the minutes include brief summaries of each staffer’s position on trans callers: “[Staffer A] feels that she doesn’t want to devote a lot of energy to [a trans-feminized caller], she feels uncomfortable, [Staffer B] – transexual woman to man, maybe deal with but definitely not man to woman, [Staffer C] -? [Staffer D]- talks to everyone, [Staffer E] can’t put a woman’s wisdom into an imitation body – (not verbatim), would handle it, [Staffer F] write to places to get info., [Staffer G] is there any training required to get on switchboard.”[9]
Though these minutes represent only a narrow glimpse into the opinions and practices of LSWB volunteers, it is nonetheless an illustrative glimpse. Alongside the rather explicit trans-misogyny of Staffers C and E, other staffers’ reactions ranged from personal discomfort (Staffer A) and principled inclusion (Staffer D) to an emphasis on obtaining reliable information for callers (Staffer F) and concerns about staff training (Staffer G). Especially in the 1970s, LSWB’s open-ended, non-hierarchical governance structure led to a confusing tapestry of methods for serving (or not serving) trans callers, leading some interactions to be dismissive and even bigoted, and others to be inclusive, or at least directly informational.
In 1983, the Switchboard collective decided on a new policy to limit phone calls with all “men” to no more than fifteen minutes and to refer transsexuals to Identity House for counseling or to “appropriate doctors or hospitals.”[10] This policy showed an increased awareness of the needs of transsexual and transvestite callers, but its wording still relied on a medicalized definition of transness that prioritized “treatment” over inclusion. By 1988, LSWB’s policy toward trans callers had shifted once again, likely because of its new status as a non-profit organization and its move to the LGBT Community Center. In a grant proposal from that year, staffers explained that, although the Switchboard gave “preference to lesbian and women callers,” they did not “discriminate against callers outside this realm if it is felt that the LSWB is the appropriate resource to disseminate the information requested.” They went on to explain that “callers include not only lesbians but bisexual women, women questioning their sexuality, family members and friends of lesbians, transsexuals and some men who feel safe calling us.”[11]
[1] December 27, 1972 call log, Box 3, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[2] Gill-Peterson, A Short History of Trans Misogyny, 37.
[3] January 1973 call log, Box 3, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[4] December 12, 1979 meeting minutes, Box 1, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[5] On the complicated racial and classed politics of this term, see Finn Enke, “Collective Memory and the Transfeminist 1970s,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 5, no. 1 (2018): 9–29.
[6] Patrick Califia, Sex Changes : The Politics of Transgenderism (Cleis, 2003).
[7] October 5, 1986 meeting minutes, Box 1, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[8] September 6, 1977 call log, Box 3, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[9] I have redacted staffers’ names here as per the stipulations of this collection, which state, “No names may be published unless they are publicly known to be gay, or their permission has been obtained, or they are deceased.”
October 5, 1977 meeting minutes, Box 1, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[10] June 7, 1983 meeting minutes, Box 1. Interestingly, according to meeting minutes from 1988, Identity House asked LSWB to stop referring “transvestite” callers to its counseling service, which it explained was only for “gay and bisexual” clients. See “Topics for December Meeting,” 1988, Box 1, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.
[11] Grant proposal to National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, 1988, Box 1, Lesbian Switchboard of New York City Records, LGBT Community Center National History Archive.